WITHOUT THE SUNLIGHT of literature children cannot grow as they should. We know that from books come knowledge and understanding, that they are a source of infinite joy and fun, that they stimulate imagination and creativity, that they open eyes and minds and hearts. It is through the power and music and magic of stories and poems that children can expand their own intellectual curiosity, deve-lop the empathy and awareness that they will need to tackle the complexities of their own emotions, of the human condition in which they find themselves. And it's through books that we can learn the mastery of words, the essential skill that will enable us to express ourselves well enough to achieve our potential in the classroom and beyond.

We all know this. Does it need repeating? Sadly, yes. Because there are still millions of children in this country who never become readers. In this we are a nation divided, the literate and the illiterate. And what are the literate doing - those with the power and the knowledge and the understanding - to remedy the situation? Not nearly enough. We may have the best of intentions, yet still in 21st-century Britain vast numbers of children leave school functionally illiterate, condemned to a life of intellectual and emotional poverty, to a dark helplessness and hopelessness that leads all too often to a life on the fringes of society, and sometimes even to prison. Illiteracy is endemic in our prisons. How is it that the country of Shakespeare and Milton, Dickens and Hardy, of Dahl and Pullman, still manages to fail so many of its children?

We are all to blame. For a start, we know that too many children grow up in homes where they are rarely, if ever, read to. Perhaps the parents don't read themselves anyway. Perhaps they are too busy or too tired to set aside the time to do it. Perhaps it is easier to sit the children down in front of the television with a DVD. Perhaps they have no money for books, and perhaps the local library has been closed down or is too far away. Whatever the reason, a child who has no contact with books at this crucial early age simply cannot know the fun and the wonder they are missing.

So it is often in school that there is the first real opportunity to introduce many of these children to books. But here, too, children are often failed by the system. Among our teachers, most of whom are inspired and hardworking, there are still far too many who teach literacy and who do not enjoy reading themselves, who see books as merely educational tools useful in the literacy strategy. What you do not love, you cannot teach. It is not the fault of these teachers. They themselves as children have also been let down by the same system. But their own lack of enthusiasm compounds the problem and a vital opportunity to turn a child into a reader has been lost again. So the cycle goes on.

Like many authors and storytellers, illustrators and poets, I have been to many hundreds of schools, invited in to help engage children with books, to encourage them, to read stories, to help them to find their own voices as writers. I know the moment I walk into a school whether stories and poems are valued and loved by teachers and children alike. At St Joseph's Primary School in Muswell Hill, the teachers love books, and so do the children. It's the same at Charles Dickens Primary School in Southwark. There are thousands of schools like them, but sadly there are thousands that are not, schools where the library is still a few shelves in a corridor, where books are a low priority, where head teachers believe that all a love of books can do, is better done by a computer. It should never be a case of either, or. We need both: IT and a great library.

Parents can help, so can teachers. But it's government that must make the enjoyment of reading the greatest priority in any school. First it has to acknowledge that the literacy strategy has been well intentioned, but fundamentally ill-advised. It has failed, and is failing, far too many of our children. In practice it is often narrow, test driven, and worst of all uninspired. It constrains our teachers, dulls their creativity. The testing at Key Stage 2 has to go, as it has at Key Stage 3. It is self-evident to me and to most teachers and parents that I speak to that it is through an enjoyment of literature that a child will best learn about literacy. We've been putting the cart before the horse. Give the children the books early, give them the love of books early. Let the spelling and the punctuation and the comprehension, important though they are, let them come later, and be taught in such a way that all the wonder and the magic and the fun are not lost in the process.

So how to set about turning things round? It should be mandatory - and this can be done through Ofsted - for a primary school to have a well-stocked, professionally run library. It works. They do it in New Zealand. Books are the tools our teachers need to enthuse the children. And the teachers should be trained - a module in children's literature should be part of every teacher's training. We have to give our teachers a love of books. We need to train them, fire their enthusiasm and then trust them.

And let's invite parents and grandparents into schools, in vast numbers, to read with the children, telling them their stories. It works. Get more writers and storytellers and poets and illustrators into schools. It works. Let's have half an hour at the end of the school day for the reading of stories and poems, just for the sheer joy of it. Like so many teachers, writers, storytellers and poets, I've seen for myself how often the sunlight of literature can touch hearts and souls, how it can enrich lives, change lives.

© Michael Morpurgo 2009

Michael Morpurgo discusses War Horse, from page to stage, at the National Theatre, London SE1, on January 22 at 6pm (nationaltheatre.org.uk; 020-7452 3000)

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